José Agustín Silvestre de los Santos

La Voz de la Verdad, Caña TV

August 2, 2011, in La Romana, Dominican Republic

The body of Silvestre, a
magazine director and television host, was found on a highway outside La Romana
with gunshot wounds to the head, neck, and abdomen. Silvestre, 59, had been seized
by four men outside a La Romana hotel about an hour earlier, at 8 a.m., and
forced into a Jeep, according to press reports.

On August 9 and 10, the
attorney general's office and national police announced they had arrested five
men whom they said were involved in planning or carrying out the attack. Police
seized several weapons, dozens of ammunition rounds, and 118,000 pesos
(US$3,070). One suspect allegedly told investigators that the assailants
had planned to abduct Silvestre and take him to the capital, Santo Domingo, but
shot him when the journalist resisted. All five suspects were detained, as was
a sixth man who was arrested later, press
reports said.

Police alleged the attack was ordered by Matías Avelino
Castro, also known as Joaquín Espinal Almeyda, a hotel owner and reputed drug
trafficker. Authorities said they traced Avelino
Castro's alleged involvement through a rental car that was used in the attack
and leased through the suspect's girlfriend. The
attorney general's office accused Avelino Castro of ordering the attack in
retaliation for an article in the July issue of Silvestre's magazine, La Voz
de la Verdad (Voice of the Truth). The story said a man named "Daniel," an
alias used by the suspect, had been implicated in the recent murder of a local
businessman and his driver, authorities said.

Silvestre, who hosted a Caña
TV program of the same name as his magazine, had accused political figures and
a priest of having involvement in drug trafficking and money laundering, press
reports said. In
May, a local prosecutor had filed a defamation complaint against Silvestre in
connection with a television report that accused the official of having ties to
drug traffickers. The journalist was jailed for several days until posting
bail, according to news
reports. The case was pending at the time of the murder, according to
Elpidio Tolentino, a local official with the press group Colegio Dominicano de
Periodistas, or CDP. Silvestre had told CDP that he had been followed by two
cars that tried to intercept him on July 23.

In an August 9 press
conference, prosecutor Frank Soto said witnesses had accused Silvestre of
accepting money from drug traffickers on occasion for not publishing
incriminating information or for running stories harmful to rivals, local press
reports said. Tolentino said CDP challenged authorities to "more
thoroughly investigate and to present any evidence they have supporting this
claim. ... If this is true they must fully investigate it. If not, they must
clean his reputation."

In November 2013, a judge freed one of the men arrested in August, Fermín Calderón, on
bail. The CDP condemned the decision, saying
that Calderón, who is charged with laundering money for Avelino Castro as well
as for the murder of Silvestre, is a flight risk and that they feared he might
flee the country and join Avelino Castro.